such regulations: that the heir, in order that he be really the heir, be marked out by no express condition to be fulfilled after the death of the testator; that the testator nominate only the next heir to his possessions and never a subsequent one, since by this process the liberty of the first would be restricted; that the testator have the power of appointing several heirs, but must do this in a direct way; that he be allowed to divide a thing according to its extent, but never with respect to the rights connected with it—as, for instance, substance and usufruct, etc. From these flow manifold inconveniences and limitations of freedom, as also from the idea connected with them, that the heir is the representative of the testator,—an idea which (like so many others which have since become so extremely important) is founded, I believe, on a formality of the Romans, and therefore on the necessarily imperfect arrangement of the juridical constitution of a people who were only in process of formation. But we shall be able to rid ourselves of all these falser notions if we keep the position distinctly in view, that nothing further is to be granted to the testator than, at the most, to appoint his heir; and that the State, while it should assist the latter to secure possession when his appointment is valid, must not lend its aid to the enforcement of any disposition on the part of the testator extending beyond this.
In case no heir has been appointed by the dying person, the State must arrange an order of succession ab intestato. But it does not come within my present design to develope the principles on which such an arrangement should proceed, nor of those which relate to the portion always due to the testator's family: I will content myself with observing, that the State should not have scope afforded it for the furtherance of its own positive aims in these, as in the other regulations we have considered—as in maintaining the splendour and prosperity of families, or the opposite extreme, of dis-
